Method and apparatus for coordinating an interactive computer game with a broadcast television program

ABSTRACT

In order to allow viewers to interact with a television broadcast, a central control establishes a virtual environment in which viewers participate with characters designed by them. Viewers can create a character with the aid of a computer and then submit the character to the television show on disk or transmit the character via a web site. In order to create characters, a user “preprograms” a character by setting certain parameters and characteristics. Thereafter, the character would operate autonomously. During the television broadcast, some of the characters submitted to the television show or web site can be selected for appearance on the show by any conventional means, such as by lottery, sequentially or based on the merits of characters submitted to the television show, etc. Characters may also be submitted before the show and selected based on a “virtual interview.”

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/690,584, filed on Oct. 17, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,447,396.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to multi-player interactive computer games,methods, and apparatus for using these games to interact with broadcasttelevision programs.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Computer games are a very popular form of contemporary entertainment.Many of these computer games display an animated character in a virtual,on-screen environment. Movement and actions performed by the animatedcharacter can be controlled by the user and often the characterinteracts with other characters that are generated by the computer inthe virtual environment.

More recently, multi-player games have become popular. In this type ofgame, a player runs a computer game version on his local computer. Thisgame version acts as a client that can connect to a central server;generally, this connection is made over the Internet. In general, boththe client and server computers maintain a shared representation of thestate of a virtual environment in which the game is played.Consequently, these games are typically called networked virtualenvironment, or net-VE, games. Changes made by a player to his localclient representation are sent to the server, and then the serverpropagates those changes to each of the other clients. Similarly,changes made by the server to the server-side simulation are alsopropagated to all connected clients. This multi-player arrangementallows a player not only to interact with the virtual environment, butalso to interact with the virtual characters controlled by otherplayers.

The problem with this system is that only those players who havepurchased the client portion of the computer game can participate in thegame. Further, it is not possible for others, such as a player'sfriends, to even view the game in progress unless they are can view thegame on a player's monitor. Thus, these games tend to be limited to aplurality of single players sitting in front of their computers.

Television broadcasts that can be viewed simultaneously by a largeaudience and television programs, including programs that use liveactors, as well as animated shows are extremely popular. When comparedto computer games, television shows have the added advantage that manymore people own television sets than own computers. Thus, the potentialaudience for television shows in much larger then that for computergames, even multi-player games.

However, attempts to allow audience participation in broadcasttelevision shows have, to date, been limited. For example, U.S. Pat. No.5,537,143 discloses a live television game show in which viewers of thetelevision broadcast of the game show could interact with the game showby entering answers via telephones. This arrangement allowed viewers tohave the perception that they were interacting with the show. Althoughthis system allows viewers to interact with a televised show, it hasmany limits. In the first place, the viewers could only interact withthe show when the show was actually being broadcast; there was nopossibility of playing the game when the show was not being broadcast.Secondly, all viewers always saw the same televised show. In addition,the viewers were unable to change or modify either what they saw or howevents progressed.

Another arrangement allowed many viewers to influence a broadcasttelevision show by “voting.” In such an arrangement, viewers used entrydevices, such as telephones, to enter a vote, selecting one of aplurality of predetermined choices. After a certain time period allowedfor voting, the votes entered were tallied and the majority of votes wasused to influence the television broadcast. This scheme has many of thesame shortcomings as the arrangement discussed above.

Other attempts were made to address these shortcomings. For example,U.S. Pat. No. 5,861,881 discloses an interactive display in which aviewer could receive personalized video, audio and graphics during atelevision broadcast. While this system allowed viewers to see differentdisplays, the personalization was limited to backgrounds and peripheralevents. The viewer still had no direct control over, or participationin, the broadcast portion of the system.

Still other computer games were developed that allowed participants tohave different views, yet interact on at least some level. For example,U.S. Pat. No. 4,193,598 discloses a computer game system in whichdifferent participants viewing different scenes are allowed to interactby means of objects that pass from one scene to another. A user caninteract with an object when the object comes into “viewing” distance ofthe user's characters. However, this system has no broadcast component.Therefore, there is a need for an interactive game in which the user canhave a rich interaction with a television broadcast to an extent greaterthan previously possible.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a central controlestablishes a large virtual environment in which viewers participatewith characters either controlled and/or designed by them. Each user candirectly control or influence characters within a “active region,” aregion with defined boundaries that encompass part of the virtualenvironment that is much less than the total environment. The broadcastportion of the system also has an active region, at least a portion ofwhich is shown on a broadcast television show. The locations of theactive regions are controlled by the central control although users mayrequest that the central control move their active region.

In accordance with one embodiment, the central control moves the activeregions of selected users so that these active regions coincide with, oroverlap, the broadcast active region. The selected users are thenallowed to control characters that appear on the broadcast televisionshow. The control may be actual real-time control or may be“pre-programmed” control in which the users create characters withpreselected characteristics or parameters and then the characters actautonomously or are controlled by broadcast portion of the system whenthe characters are present in the broadcast active region.

In accordance with another embodiment, the central control may transportcharacters created by a user from the user's active region to thebroadcast active region by means of a virtual “portal.” Once thecharacters arrive at the broadcast active region, they may be underreal-time control by the user or may operate with preprogrammedcharacteristics as previously described.

In another embodiment, the virtual environment in the broadcast activeregion may constitute the entire show so that the television broadcastis an animated show with computer controlled characters. Alternatively,the television show may feature a section with live actors and a sectioncomprising a totally animated portion. In still another embodiment, theanimated portion of the television show consists of a display screenthat appears with the live actors so that the actors can interact withthe animated characters during the broadcast. Alternatively, the liveactors can interact with the animated characters by means ofconventional “blue screen” techniques.

In accordance with another embodiment, the central control is a centralserver with a central database. Each user and the broadcast portion ofthe system have its own computer. All of the computers and the servermaintain shared representations of a common simulation. The servermaintains a simulation of the entire virtual environment and eachcomputer maintains a simulation of its active region portion of theenvironment. The simulations are coordinated by passing messages betweenthe users computer and the server. The messages may be passed over theInternet.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and further advantages of the invention may be betterunderstood by referring to the following description in conjunction withthe accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a block schematic diagram of an overall system architectureconstructed in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating the virtual environment, eachuser's active region and the broadcast active region.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating how the display on a user'scomputer monitor can vary from the broadcast television view.

FIG. 4 is a block schematic diagram illustrating one possible hardwareconfiguration for implementing the inventive system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates in a schematic form one embodiment of the presentinvention. In this embodiment, a plurality of viewers both participatesand watches a broadcast television program. Many of the viewers areparticipating viewers. Examples include viewers 106 and 112. Theseviewers would typically have both a computer and a television set. Forexample, viewer 106 has a computer 108 and a television set 110.Similarly viewer 112 has a computer 114 and a television set 116.

Although the participating viewers have been illustrated in FIG. 1 withboth a computer and a television set, obviously these functions could becombined in a single device. For example, a computer embodied in a settop box would use the television set as a monitor display. In this case,a separate computer and monitor would not be necessary. Alternatively, aviewer might view a particular television channel by opening a separatewindow on the computer display and viewing the television broadcast overthe Internet or another broadband channel, such as a cable channel. Inthis case, a separate television set would not be necessary. Such asviewer might correspond to viewer 107 with computer 109.

However, other viewers, such as viewer 102, are non-participatingviewers and have only a television set 104. While these latter viewerscannot directly participate in the TV broadcast, they can view the TVbroadcast and thus participate vicariously with perhaps their friends oracquaintances. These viewers might also participate in other ways. Forexample, such viewers might create a character with the aid of afriend's computer and then submit the character to the television showon disk or transmit the character to a web site. During the televisionbroadcast, some of the characters submitted to the television show orweb site could be selected for appearance on the show.

The computers 108 and 114 of the participating viewers 106 and 112 wouldbe conventionally coupled through a network 118 to a central server 120.The network 118 would be a LAN or a WAN such as a cable or broadbandWAN; however most preferably, this network would consist of theInternet. In addition, the television portion could be broadcast asschematically illustrated in FIG. 1 or alternatively, transmitted via aconventional cable or broadband network.

The server 120, in turn, is coupled to another client 122 whichgenerates the television signals for the broadcast transmitter 124,which is coupled to the TV broadcast tower 126. Although the server 120is shown directly connected to the client computer 122, it could also beconnected to the client computer 122 via the Internet 118 in aconventional fashion.

The arrangement shown in FIG. 1 allows viewers 106, 107 and 112 tointeract with the broadcast television program via the server 120,however advantageously the viewers 106, 107 and 112 can also interactwith each other via the central server 120 when the television broadcastis not being transmitted. Viewer 102, however, can only interact withthe television program when the broadcast portion is being transmitted.As will be described below, the central server 120 controls the overallstate of the game. Each of the viewers 106, 107 and 112, however, has alocal simulation running in their computers 108, 109 and 114respectively. Thus viewer 106 for example can either interact withserver 120 by himself, interact with the game or interact with viewers107 and 112 during the television broadcast portion, or when thetelevision broadcast is not being transmitted. Similarly, viewers 106,107 and 112 may selectively interact with the television broadcastportion of the interactive environment.

In order to prevent chaos that would result when a large number ofviewers attempted to interact simultaneously with the broadcast portionof the interactive environment, the users actions are controlled asillustrated in FIG. 2. In particular, the server 120 establishes avirtual environment, which is much larger than the environment that canbe controlled or viewed by any single viewer. Accordingly, each viewerhas a “active region” with which the viewer can interact and control.For example, user 1 has an active region 204, user 2 has an activeregion 208, user 3 has an active region 206, user 4 has an active region210 and user 5 has an active region 202. In a similar manner, thebroadcast portion of the game also has an active region. In this case,it is shown as active region 202 that is coincident with the activeregion of user 5. Although these active regions are illustratedschematically in FIG. 2 as two dimensional, it would be obvious to thoseskilled in the art that these active regions could also bethree-dimensional.

Within each active region, the user has a “view”, which is the portionof the active region and the entire virtual environment 200 whichappears on the user's computer monitor screen. Typically, this viewwould only be a portion of the user's active region, but it may be theentire active region. For example, user 1 has a view 216 that is aportion of active region 204. Similarly, user 2 has a view 220 that is aportion of his active region 208. User 3 has a view 218 of active regionof 206. Similarly, user 5 has a view 214 of his area 202. In a similarmanner, the broadcast portion of the game also has a view 212 of itsactive region 202. Although these views are illustrated as twodimensional in FIG. 2, the view could also move in three dimensions ifthe active region is three-dimensional.

A user can readily move view around the active region 204. For example,user 1 can move its view 216 readily around area 204. In addition, theuser would be provided with one or more characters that would be underits control. These characters might be directly controlled by the user;for example, the user might control a character via a mouse and causethe character to move within its view 216. The entire view 216 may movewhen the character reaches the edge of the view in a conventionalfashion. Alternatively, the user might “preprogram” a character bysetting certain parameters and characteristics. Thereafter, thecharacter would be controlled by the user's computer and would operateautonomously.

While a user's view and its location are directly under his control, theactive region is under the overall computer control. Thus, a user canmake a request to the central server to migrate his active region toanother portion of the virtual environment; however, this request mightor might not be granted depending on the conditions of the virtualenvironment. In particular, the user generally would not be able to movehis home environment into the broadcast home environment withoutpermission, or a “invitation,” from the broadcast portion of the game.

In order to directly interact with another viewer, the user mightrequest that his active region be made to partially, or wholly, overlapthe active region of another user. For example, users 2 and 3 haveactive regions 208 and 206 that overlap. Thus, these users can directlymanipulate their own characters that can interact with the characters ofthe other user. If the user's views 218 and 220 also overlap, then bothusers can view the characters at the same time.

If a users active region overlaps with the broadcast active region, thenthe user can directly interact with characters or items that are a partof the broadcast portion of the environment. For example, user 5 and thebroadcast portion have the same active region 202. In addition, user 5'sview 214 overlaps with the broadcast view 212, thus the user can bothsee and interact directly with the broadcast portion of the environment.User 5 may be able to directly control characters that appear on thebroadcast's television show, however this interaction may be limited inpredetermined ways in order to prevent user 5's characters withinterfering directly with the characters in the show. For example, thetelevision show may have stock characters that appear each week duringthe television broadcast and the user's character may appear as abackground character that may or may not be selected to interact withthe regular characters.

In order to control the users who interact with the broadcast portion ofthe environment, the central control can move the active regions of onlyselected viewers to the broadcast active regions. The selected viewerscan be selected by any conventional means, such as by lottery,sequentially or based on the merits of characters submitted to thetelevision show, etc. Characters may be submitted before the show andselected based on a “virtual interview.”

In accordance with another embodiment, a user may also interact with thebroadcast portion of the environment without having its active regionmoved by means of a “portal”. Such a portal 224 is schematicallyillustrated in FIG. 2. The portal is a virtual path that extends fromuser 4's active region 210 to the broadcast active region 202. In orderto use this portal, the user 4 would manipulate or move a character tothe end 226 of portal 224. That character would then be “transported”into the active region 202 of the broadcast. Once in the active region,the character could either be controlled by the user 4 or the charactermight operate in a “preprogrammed” manner depending on perimeters andcharacteristics which have been selected by user 4. In general, portalscould simultaneously extend from the broadcast active region to eachusers active region. As with the active regions, only selected userswould be allowed to enter the portal. The characters may be selected byinviting them to enter the portal. Alternatively, characters could beallowed to enter portals until portals “fill” or become inactive when asuitable number of characters have entered the broadcast area.

In another embodiment, each user would be assigned a “home area” inwhich the user could customize the environment. Later, the broadcastportion of the system might conduct a “neighborhood tour” of thecustomized home areas. The user's characters may or may not be presentduring such tours.

Users can interact with the broadcast portion of the program in othermanners. For example, objects, which are totally controlled by thecomputer, may be arranged so that they are not affected by the activeregions of either the broadcast portion or the users. Thus, an objectmay move from one active region to another freely to interact with thecharacters therein. For example, object 228 may move, as indicated arrow230, from the broadcast active region 202 into the active region 204 ofuser 1. Thus, the object may move out of the broadcast 212 andeventually into the user 1 view 216. Thus, the object could move fromthe TV show into a user's active region so that a user could interactwith it. Similarly, the other object, for example object 232, mightappear in the broadcast view and move out of the view as indicated byarrow 234 either into the virtual environment 200 where the object“disappears” or into another user's active region where it can be viewedby other users. Other objects, such as object 236, may pass from oneuser's view to another, for example from user 2's view 220 to user 3'sview 218 as indicated by arrow 238. Other objects, such as object 240,may simply move around a user's active region 210 as indicated by arrow242. Thus, while the object may move temporarily out of the view 220, itwill reappear when the view is moved to its location. Other characters,items and objects can be arranged in a similar manner to allow a richinteraction between users and between users and the broadcast televisionview.

In other embodiments, users may cooperatively create or changecharacters and affect the environment. For example, two users who areinteracting may jointly select characteristics and parameters of acharacter. Alternatively, user operating together may change theirenvironments or the overall environment. For example, users may pollutetheir own active regions by neglecting to collect trash that they havedropped. If enough users pollute their environment, then the entirevirtual environment, including the broadcast portion may becomepolluted. This pollution might be depicted by changing backgroundcolors, dimming the picture, etc.

Because each user may have a view that differs from the broadcast view,the view seen on the user's computer monitor may differ from the viewshown on the user's television screen. This is illustrated in FIG. 3, inwhich a participating viewer 300 has both a computer 302 with a monitorand a television set 310. Since the active region of the viewer 304 doesnot overlap with the active region 308 of the broadcast view, the user'smonitor view 306 will differ from the user's television view 312. Insome cases, if the active regions 304 and 308 overlap, the monitor view306 and the television view 312 may be the same or some portion may bethe same. Thus, a user could decide to interact, via his computer 302,or merely view the television 310 to watch the behavior of objects thathe has “launched” into the broadcast environment, or to watch thebehavior of other user's characters that have been launched into thebroadcast environment.

The virtual environment of the present invention is controlled by aconventional simulation game, which as previously mentioned isconventionally called a networked virtual environment. Such a game isschematically shown in FIG. 4. In this game, two clients 402 and 404interact with a central server 400. In accordance with conventionalgames there can be more or less than two clients. The central server 400contains a simulation program 408, which in turn uses a central database412 to store all of the game parameters including the characters, theirpositions, objects in the environment, etc. The simulation program 408interacts with the database 412 as indicated schematically by arrow 410.In addition, each client has its own simulation program that is locallycontrolled and renders the user's view portion of the virtualenvironment on the user's monitor. For example, client 1 has simulationprogram 414 operating in its computer and client 4 has simulationprogram 420. Simulation program 414 communicates with local storage 416as indicated by arrow 418 to store local variables. Similarly,simulation program 420 communicates with local storage 422 as indicatedschematically by arrow 424.

In order to synchronize the environment, both the client and servermaintain a shared representation of the state of the simulation, in thiscase, the state of the virtual environment. Changes made by a client tothe state of the client's local representation are sent to as statechange requests to the server. In response to the state change requests,the server may change the state of the virtual environment. If so, theserver 400 propagates those state changes to the other clients, forexample client 404. Similarly, changes made by the server 400 to its ownsimulation program 408 are also propagated to clients 402 and 404.

Generally, clients 402 and 404 do not communicate directly with eachother, but always go through server 400. This indirect communicationassures that the state of each client's virtual environment isconsistent with that of the server and the other user's.

In addition, clients 402 and 404 do not directly send state changes tothe server, but rather make state change requests as indicatedschematically by arrows 428 and 430. This mechanism establishes theserver 400 is the final arbiter of state and helps prevent an individualclient from sending corrupt state information.

During its operation, the server simulation program 408 usually mirrorsall critical state changes to the database 412 in order to facilitatequick recovery in the case of a system crash and also to allow multipleservers to synchronize to the same world. A centralized database is alsoused to maintain consistency across such servers.

In turn, the simulation program 408 returns state change commands asindicated by arrows 426 and 432 to the client simulation programs 414and 420 respectively in order to propagate changes in the virtualenvironment to each of the clients.

In a conventional fashion, the server-client architecture may allow theclient state to become slightly out of synchronization with the serverstate as long as the particular state variables do not representcritical state information, the discrepancy is within predeterminedtolerances and the state is likely to change in a predictable way overtime. For example, a simulated object might be launched and it isusually not critical to the game experience that one client view theobject a fraction of a centimeter below the position where the secondclient views the object. The more important characteristics are themotion of the object over time and that the end effect upon the objectbe the same if either client interacts with the object.

The arrangement illustrated in FIG. 4 is a conventional onlinemulti-player game with a shared environment. Such an arrangement iscalled a client server architecture or “star architecture”. This type ofarchitecture is well known in the art and many commercial examples ofsuch virtual environments exist. These games are generally known asmulti-player fantasy role-playing games and include Ultima Online,developed and marketed by Origin Systems, Inc. 5918 W. Courtyard,Austin, Tex. 78731; Quake, developed and marketed by id Software, 18601LBJ Freeway, Suite 615, Mesquite, Tex. 75150; and Everquest® developedand marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc.,919 East HillsdaleBlvd., 2^(nd) Floor, Foster City, Calif. 94404 (Everquest is a trademarkof Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc.)

Architectures and games of this type and their implementation are alsodiscussed in detail in a book entitled “Networked Virtual Environments:Design and Implementation” Sandeep Singhal and Michael Zyda, AddisonWesley Publishing Company, 1999, ISBN: 0201325578, the contents of whichare hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

Other game architectures may also be used. One of these is called a“ring” topology in which there is no central server; instead, userspropagate state information from one user to another. Such anarchitecture is described in detail in an article entitled “AnExperience In Real-Time Networking For Computer Science Tripos ProjectDissertation”, Stewart Cheshire, Sydney Sussex College, submitted Friday19 May 1989, project supervised by Dr. J. K. M. Moody.

Although an exemplary embodiment of the invention has been disclosed, itwill be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes andmodifications can be made which will achieve some of the advantages ofthe invention without departing from the spirit and scope of theinvention. For example, it will be obvious to those reasonably skilledin the art that, although the description was directed to a particularhardware system and operating system, other hardware and operatingsystem software could be used in the same manner as that described.Other aspects, such as the specific instructions utilized to achieve aparticular function, as well as other modifications to the inventiveconcept are intended to be covered by the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for coordinating an interactive computergame being played by a plurality of users with a broadcast televisionprogram, comprising: (a) simulating a virtual environment and displayingat least a portion of the virtual environment on the broadcasttelevision program; (b) providing to each user a mechanism for creatingan object by assigning to the object characteristics and parameters, theobject thereafter operating autonomously; and (c) selecting at least oneobject created by a user and displaying the selected object in thevirtual environment on the broadcast television program.
 2. The methodof claim 1 wherein step (a) comprises simulating a virtual environmentin which a plurality of objects interact with each other.
 3. The methodof claim 1 wherein step (b) comprises maintaining a web site having aprogram thereon, which program allows a user to create and customize anobject.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein step (b) comprises maintaininga web site having a program thereon, which program allows a plurality ofusers to cooperatively create and customize an object.
 5. The method ofclaim 1 wherein step (c) comprises selecting the at least one objectsequentially.
 6. A method for coordinating an interactive computer gamebeing played by a plurality of users with a broadcast televisionprogram, comprising: (a) simulating a virtual environment and displayingat least a portion of the virtual environment on the broadcasttelevision program; (b) providing to each user a mechanism for creatingan object by assigning to the object characteristics and parameters, theobject thereafter operating autonomously; and (c) selecting by means ofa lottery at least one object created by a user and displaying theselected object in the virtual environment on the broadcast televisionprogram.
 7. A method for coordinating an interactive computer game beingplayed by a plurality of users with a broadcast television program,comprising: (a) simulating a virtual environment and displaying at leasta portion of the virtual environment on the broadcast televisionprogram; (b) providing to each user a mechanism for creating an objectby assigning to the object characteristics and parameters, the objectthereafter operating autonomously; and (c) selecting based on the meritsof the object at least one object created by a user and displaying theselected object in the virtual environment on the broadcast televisionprogram.
 8. A method for coordinating an interactive computer game beingplayed by a plurality of users with a broadcast television program,comprising: (a) simulating a virtual environment and displaying at leasta portion of the virtual environment on the broadcast televisionprogram; (b) providing to each user a mechanism for creating an objectby assigning to the object characteristics and parameters, the objectthereafter operating autonomously; and (c) selecting based on a virtualinterview at least one object created by a user and displaying theselected object in the virtual environment on the broadcast televisionprogram.
 9. Apparatus for coordinating an interactive computer gamebeing played by a plurality of users with a broadcast televisionprogram, comprising: a computer that simulates a virtual environment; amechanism that displays at least a portion of the virtual environment onthe broadcast television program; a mechanism available to each user forcreating an object by assigning to the object characteristics andparameters, the object thereafter operating autonomously; and amechanism that selects at least one object created by a user anddisplaying the selected object in the virtual environment on thebroadcast television program.
 10. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein thevirtual environment includes a plurality of objects that interact witheach other.
 11. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the mechanism forcreating an object comprises a web site having a program thereon, whichprogram allows a user to create and customize an object.
 12. Theapparatus of claim 9 wherein the mechanism for creating an objectcomprises a web site having a program thereon, which program allows aplurality of users to cooperatively create and customize an object. 13.The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the mechanism for selecting at leastone object comprises means for selecting the at least one objectsequentially.
 14. Apparatus for coordinating an interactive computergame being played by a plurality of users with a broadcast televisionprogram, comprising: a computer that simulates a virtual environment; amechanism that displays at least a portion of the virtual environment onthe broadcast television program; a mechanism available to each user forcreating an object by assigning to the object characteristics andparameters, the object thereafter operating autonomously; and amechanism comprising a lottery that selects at least one object createdby a user and displaying the selected object in the virtual environmenton the broadcast television program.
 15. Apparatus for coordinating aninteractive computer game being played by a plurality of users with abroadcast television program, comprising: a computer that simulates avirtual environment; a mechanism that displays at least a portion of thevirtual environment on the broadcast television program; a mechanismavailable to each user for creating an object by assigning to the objectcharacteristics and parameters, the object thereafter operatingautonomously; and a mechanism that based on the merits of the objectselects at least one object created by a user and displaying theselected object in the virtual environment on the broadcast televisionprogram.
 16. Apparatus for coordinating an interactive computer gamebeing played by a plurality of users with a broadcast televisionprogram, comprising: a computer that simulates a virtual environment; amechanism that displays at least a portion of the virtual environment onthe broadcast television programs; a mechanism available to each userfor creating an object by assigning to the object characteristics andparameters, the object thereafter operating autonomously; and amechanism that based on a virtual interview selects at least one objectcreated by a user and displaying the selected object in the virtualenvironment on the broadcast television program.
 17. Apparatus forcoordinating an interactive computer game being played by a plurality ofusers with a broadcast television program, comprising: means forsimulating a virtual environment; means for displaying at least aportion of the virtual environment on the broadcast television program;means available to each user for creating an object by assigning to theobject characteristics and parameters, the object thereafter operatingautonomously; and means for selecting at least one object created by auser and displaying the selected object in the virtual environment onthe broadcast television program.
 18. The apparatus of claim 17 whereinthe means for creating an object comprises a web site having a programthereon, which program allows a user to create and customize an object.19. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein the means for creating an objectcomprises a web site having a program thereon, which program allows aplurality of users to cooperatively create and customize an object. 20.Apparatus for coordinating an interactive computer game being played bya plurality of users with a broadcast television program, comprising:means for simulating a virtual environment; means for displaying atleast a portion of the virtual environment on the broadcast televisionprogram; means available to each user for creating an object byassigning to the object characteristics and parameters, the objectthereafter operating autonomously; and means comprising a lottery forselecting at least one object created by a user and displaying theselected object in the virtual environment on the broadcast televisionprogram.